Greg Schiano reveals RB Kyle Monangai will opt out of Rate Bowl vs. Kansas State

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights are going to be shorthanded in the Rate Bowl against the Kansas State Wildcats. On Tuesday, Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano announced that star running back Kyle Monangai will opt out of the bowl.

Despite not playing, Monangai will help the team still. Schiano explained that while Monangai isn’t going to be playing, he’s been working with the team to get younger running backs prepared to take on their larger roles for the bowl game.

“He’s decided not to (play), which I fully understand,” Schiano said. “He’s helped coach, he’s been at every meeting. If you didn’t know it, you’d think he was playing. That’s just the way that he’s prepared. But that’s Kyle. If he’s going to do something he’s going to do it all out. And he’ll help us coach on Thursday night. We have some good young backs that’ll jump in there. We saw that already. They’ll play hard. I’m really proud of those guys. Opportunity now presents itself. The rest of the guys are all available to play.”

Monangai has been one of the stars of Rutgers’ offense during his time with the program. In each of the last two seasons, he’s rushed for better than 1,200 yards. He also finished his career with 27 rushing touchdowns.

While Monangai had, by far, the biggest impact on Rutgers’ rushing game this season, the Scarlet Knights do have options behind him. That starts with Antwan Raymond, who had 344 yards rushing this season. Samuel Brown V also had 201 rushing yards for the season. Still, Schiano knows that a special player is set to move on from the program and test his NFL future out in Monangai.

“Kyle’s done so much for Rutgers,” Schiano said. “Excited for his future. He’s been awesome. … Again, I thank Kyle, because you guys don’t even know some of the stuff that he played through this year and had the production that he had. I mean, it’s amazing. … I know it’s hurting him not to play in this game, but I also know why he’s not and I understand.”

As of now, Monangai is the only Rutgers senior who has opted out of the bowl game to prepare for their NFL future. The Scarlet Knights have seen four players transfer out of the program so far, though. That number still has some time to grow.

Rutgers and Kansas State will square off in the Rate Bowl on December 26th at 5:30 p.m. EST. The game will be played in Phoenix, Arizona.